When it Comes Down to It
by Miss British Teacakes
Summary: Remus wants neither pity, friendship, nor spite. All he wants is for people to know. This is his life. Cooler than it sounds. Rating for future chapters, and it may up even more.
1. Chapter One

My earliest memory is of Pontoof. We got him as a little puppy when I was four years old. Although I don't remember actually getting him, I remember running around and playing with him.

My next memory was when I was bitten, at the age of five.

After dinner one night, I went out to play. It was well after dark when my mother came outside to call me in. I was leaning to look under the cart to get Pontoof, and when she came outside. It was not unusual for me to stay outside long after dark playing with him. But my mother didn't let me stay out that full moon.

I remember her looking scared, and telling me in a quiet, but panicked voice to get inside. When I turned, I saw a huge brown wolf crouching on the ground. I really did try to move. But I was too scared. It jumped at me, tearing at my shoulder. I could hear my mother screaming. The dog that I had previously tried to lure out from under the cart ran out and started tackling the werewolf to the ground. Meanwhile, I was gasping in pain. The feeling of transforming for the first time feels something like having somebody grabbing you and twisting all your limbs. The first time, the pain is so great, you feel like you want to die. Many never _do_ survive the first time.

When I finally came to myself, I was laying face up in the grass, and it was dawn. I looked to the side, and saw a man crouched in a fetal position, naked and crying. In front of him lay a black figure. For the longest time, the man just sat there, staring at me and crying. Finally, he stood, and picked me up, I was being carried next to his body, and he held me as if I was made of glass.

That's when I noticed that his front was streaked in red, and there was dried blood in his hair. That's also when I realized that my arm was still torn and bleeding. I could hear the door creak, and saw my mother walking slowly and carefully to the man holding me.

They put me in my bed. When I was out of him arms, my mother wrapped a cloak around his shoulders to cover him up. He didn't say anything, though, the whole time he was there. He walked to the windows, and covered them up, blocking out most of the light in my room, and then left, closing the door. I could hear my mother talking through it, but I never once heard the voice of the werewolf that bit me.

I don't know what happened to him. I wish I could talk to him now. I would tell him that I forgave him years ago. I know that it wasn't his fault, and I hold no grudges. I hope that no harm befell him after he left out house, by the Ministry's doing, or his own. And I hope that maybe he'll read this and know that I hold no hard feelings toward him, whoever he was.

I didn't know, however, that he left until the next morning. The doctor of our small, muggle village came in to see me. He grumbled momentarily about the lack of light, and as soon as he pulled the drapes open, I knew why the werewolf had closed them. My eyes burned from the light, my sight having improved dramatically, and his voice, speaking loud since I was a small child made my ears ring (a reason now why I don't treat kids like that myself). He looked me over, and didn't say a word to me. However, when he left to room, I heard him confirm that, yes, the wolf bite was yesterday, and then tell my mother that I was healing at a miraculous rate. In fact, it was probably a pure miracle, in and of itself, that I even survived being bitten by a wolf.

And it was thus, that my life, and that of my family's, changed forever.

!!!!!!!!

Notes: Wow. That was a short chapter. I promise the next one will be longer.

This story ties in with some of those on my other penname. However, you don't have to read one to understand the others. And in a way, I feel bad for not updating other stories on that name. For those of you interested, it's Lyra Dogstar. If you like the stories, give me some moral help, and review them. Thank you.

Disclaimer: I wish I owned Harry Potter. But I don't. Sorry.


	2. Chapter Two

I was convinced I had ruined my mother life, although I could never understand why. I couldn't understand a lot of things when I was that young. I couldn't understand why my father hated us, and why Aelice always shook her head sadly at my mother, saying she should have figured that this would happen. And I couldn't understand why, the last time Aelice ever came to visit, she took my brother, Padraig, and they never came to see us again.

I asked why. I knew it was something I did. I begged for forgiveness, because I wanted my older brother back. Mam said that I would understand when I was older. I grew up three times, and asked three times, and every time I was given the same answer. And so I decided that maybe I should try to find out on my own.

One night, not long after they took Padraig away, my mother woke me up. She had her carpet bag with her, and she was pushing things into it. She was wrapped up in her red wool cloak, and she pulled me out of bed and wrapped me in the large quilt that the bed I used to share with my brother. She led me down the stairs and out into the cold, winter night.

People stared at us as we hurried down the road, for my Mam's hair was tossled, and by the dim light of the streetlamp, it looked like she had a bruise on her face. I was still dressed for bed, with no shoes on my feet. We finally stopped a little outside of town. I wondered what we were waiting for, as I stared down the road. Snow fell gently into my Mam's dark hair.

When I next woke up, we were in a bus, and moving down the country road, to where I did not know. It was bright out, although it was still snowing. The bus stopped many times, but we still not get out. Finally we got out, in a small town. We walked down the cobbled road, down into the lanes. And finally, after a long time, we came to a dirty building. Mam gave a man some money, and we walked into the building.

"Well, Remus," she said. "what do you think?"

"I want to go home," I said.

After a minute, she looked down at me, and I could see she was sad.

"I know, Remus," she said. "but we can't. This is where we live now. And Remus," she stopped to make sure I was listening before continuing. "when people ask who you are, what do you say?"

"I'm Remus Connolly," I said. What else would I say?

"No. Not anymore. You tell them that you are Remus Lupin. Just like I was Madeleine Lupin before I married your father, we're Madeleine and Remus Lupin now."

I couldn't understand. I couldn't understand why Mam should want to call herself by her old name again, and why we couldn't go home. All that my five year old mind could seem to comprehend was that it was my fault, it _had_ to be my fault, although I knew not why.

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Notes: Okay. So I said this would be longer. I lied . But I wanted to start the next chapter at a certain part. Maybe I'll make it easier on myself an squish the first and second chapters together. 


	3. Chapter Three

Mam was forever patient.

Before the next full moon, she took one of her nice dresses to a shop. She gave them the dress, they gave her money. Enough for a good Sunday dinner and a phone call.

The phone in the phone booth rang for a few minutes, before it was picked up. I could hear a man's voice on the other end.

"Résidence de Lupin," he said.

"This is Madeleine," she responded in clear French.

"Ah!" the man's voice held surprise and delight. "Madam Connolly."

"No, not anymore," Mam said. "I got a divorce. Listen, I would like to talk to the housekeeper……Madam Gavet."

"Oui, Ma'amselle."

The phone was put down and I could hear footsteps hurrying along. I asked Mam who that man was. She said it was the butler. She then told me to listen to what the housekeeper had to say, so that I could help her remember, and I would know for later on.

A soft voice on the other end said, "She got a divorce. Be careful not to call her 'Connolly', it might be offensive."

"Mlle Lupin?" a woman's voice now.

"Madam Gavet? I need to know a few things," Mam said, quickly.

"Oui?"

"First, how do you get blood out of clothes?" I knew why Mam had asked that. We couldn't afford to buy me new clothes whenever I ruined them, whether it was playing or my transformations that I hurt myself.

"Hydrogen Peroxide. Salt does just as well. What else?"

"How do you cook a turkey? And please be quick, I don't have much time."

The woman gave instructions fast, and within a few moments, Mam had hung up the phone and were heading back to our tiny house.

I asked why we couldn't just ask for a little money, if Mam's family was so rich, could afford a butler and a housekeeper.

"I will not ask for aid," Mam said, sharply. "We are not _beggars_, and we are _not_ _helpless_."

The way she said it made it sound like she was saying some sort of swear word. I soon learned not to mention asking for help, for asking for help was really asking for charity. I came from a proud family, one too proud for charity. Charity was Pity in my mother's eyes.

Pity is that last thing any of us want.

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Notes: Argh……still so much to talk about . ! No, but I shall fight to the very end!

Mlle – the abbreviation for

Celli: Very much so, yes. I love Remus hugs him too 

**Thanks to Nicky, and Waterfairy-rose too!**


	4. Chapter Four

Mam took a puff of her cigarette, and let the smoke stream out slowly. She started smoking around five years earlier, after we left dad. She smoked whenever she got a spare moment, and that wasn't often. She also was always telling me never to start smoking, it was awful, and ruined the lungs.

I didn't want to tell her that I spent nearly all my free time at the libraries, reading books. In the wizarding one I had found, I read a book about myself, and that I would never get lung cancer, no matter how hard I tried.

We had moved very often. People kept finding out what I was in the villages we had lived in. But now we were living in London, and nobody remembered me here, much less believed I might not be human.

And there Mam was, choking on woodbine.

"Go out and play, Remus, while you still can. Enjoy life when you have the time," she said, tiredly. "I have to start dinner anyway."

I went outside, but didn't go play with the other kids in the lane, kicking the can and using make-shift jump ropes. It seemed pointless. Instead, I walked. I knew the slums of London better than anybody, after days of just walking, and I was constantly expanding my horizons. I had started drifting into the richer parts of the city.

It was amazing how one of the corners of the lanes and the boulevards collided and one part of London. Almost mind-boggling.

It was on one of these trips to the boulevards that I first saw him. He looked about my age—maybe a year younger—with dark hair and white, white skin. He was sitting in a window, and our eyes met. He spoke to somebody in the room, and a woman appeared behind him and looked out at me. She then pulled him away from the window.

I was now walking back, wondering if I'd see him again. This time, in the window there was a different boy. He appeared older then the other, but I could still tell they were brothers.

He didn't see me though. He looked behind himself, and walked off. I continued walking.

When I returned to the house, I told Mam about the two boys in the window. She looked up sharply from where she was pounding dough for bread, and she had a calculating look in her eyes.

"I don't want you going back there, Remus," she said. "I don't want you to come into contact with those boys."

This confused me, and I asked why not.

"Because," Mam said. "That's the Black household. They're a very old wizarding family, and they're proud of it. Too proud. They're just not the sort that one takes as friends easily. _Especially_ not the working class."

"Why not the working class?"

"Because we _are_ the working class. They're upper class, we're lower class, and classes don't mix. The _middle_ class is lucky to find themselves in good graces with the upper class. It's just not done."

I could understand that. I had never recognized it as a taboo, that the classes didn't mix, but I wasn't blind. I saw how I was regarded by the middle class, so it would make sense to be seen as even less by those higher. That must have been why the boy's mother had pulled him away so quickly.

It still didn't seem right.

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**Notes: Anyway, a sort of gift for my birthday! It would be a _real_ gift for a mass updating, wouldn't it? Don't worry.  
**

**I want to stop here, because the next chapter will probably be school, or on the way  
**

**But…..YAY! Remus sees Sirius _and_ Regulus. But Sirius doesn't see Remus ;; .**

**And explanation about the lanes and boulevards: I was reading a book that was written by an Irish school teacher, that had moved to New York, and he talked about the difference between the classification of streets. I could see Remus using these terms. Anyway, the order is this: the lowest class lives in the lanes, then streets, roads, avenues, and at the top are the boulevards.**


End file.
